Heritage and Cultural Center Fdpc - Regular Meeting

All right, folks. Thank you. I'm going to call the meeting uh to order and uh we're going to get started with pledge of allegiance. So, please stand for the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you folks for being on such a fine Wednesday afternoon. This is very much appreciated. We do have uh quite a few activities to both talk about in the past as well as in the future here. So we got a lot of things going on the agenda. So thanks for uh thanks for making the time today. First of all just to review some past uh events. Uh first one is talk about the city steps last month for our speaker. Uh so I do want to ask two things which is number one what do folks think about the speaker and then number two is the first time we were trying out uh we tried out a little bit I did this uh portable uh voice amplifier and just see if that was helpful or not. Uh so any uh anybody

was it helpful? Okay. I thought it was helpful. So all right so if it's okay with everybody else we're going to leave it here. All you have to do is charge it up. It is a self rechargeable battery and you just plug it in. There's no Bluetooth, no wires. It's just you plug in the the microphone to it and you turn it on. That's it. Now, you can turn it on and off. When you get the the microphone close uh to the amplifier, you'll get there, you know. So, you just got to keep those separate. Uh but I'll keep that in the Ziploc bag in the office. And I'll just make sure like if you're going to need it tomorrow, I'll make sure it's it's charged up. Put a um a note on what it is.

Okay, I'll do that. All right. Any any other feedback? I thought the speaker themselves was outstanding. I thought I really enjoyed the speaker. Any other feedback from what people thought about the speaker it themselves? She gave a really nice really showed the different ones in the different sections of the city, not just one particular place, but you know, talked about them, provided photographs when she was able to, you know, how it was maybe back then, what it's like now. Yeah, it was I think it was really good. Excellent. Excellent. It was a nice pure history. It was it was good. You could tell like the depth that she had, you know, like she had the archavist from the Alligator County helped in it and like it was crazy. Like she had just so many different folks,

just a great speaker. So nicely done. I think Abby, were you the one who sourced that one? It might be one we might want to look at in the future as well if she continues on. Never worried. Even though she was kind of talking about a similar, you know, structure all over the city, I'll never just Okay, now we'll go to this and we'll go to this family. Agreed. All right. Uh, okay. Anything else on that? We'll go to the next one, which is community day recap from uh from last weekend. Uh, and so Abby, actually, I'll turn it over to you to give the bigger picture and then we'll see you specifically here.

Well, first of all, a huge thank you to all of you who contributed in many ways to the heritage center presence on community day, whether you were volunteering up here keeping the place open or if you were down in the booth talking to people. Um, and particularly those of you who made hot dogs at the car cruise. Um, yeah. Never be denied that you did. So, do you guys want to give an update on how the Parkers went there?

Actually, first off, there's five or six people who were there. Five six were there. It went it went very well. It we were well organized because we had the personnel. We just didn't have any customers. We thought we were you know that's again tour hours were pubert car show. Okay. So I think the overall car show is down a little bit this year. Okay. So but overall we did well. I think we need we didn't have a sign up saying what we were selling them for. I think we need something to put on the ta in front of the table or something so they know where what what we're selling them. For sure. Just to be like

they had a sign on the out on the road that people where we were selling them so that people because I have had people ask about that and what the heritage center was about. So I think if we would have had more like more notice of what you know the fact of why we were selling

not only that that sign but also the fact who we were yeah we were what the uh the foods were what they're going for and also I think it was I think it may have been you for some of the donors and sponsors who sponsored that would be nice to give them credit stuff so they could thank them because then they maybe they could go to you know they knew that she we got a Virginia well we we who came out in the hot saying. I think we had signage last year. So, I'll look in the basement, see if it's still there. If not, I'll make a note and make sure that we address have more advertisement and put the prices on because the people didn't know how much they were.

Yeah. Whether they could be banners at the top saying that or at least maybe who we are the organization. Okay. But the signs Yeah. of the sponsor. They come in the food in you know to park and everything like that parks. They really didn't have anything you know. Oh really? They had ice coat in one corner too on the other side of the door. Yeah. Some people were asking about us. Yeah. But it was good. They had good music. It was fully very well, you know, nice. I talked to Frankina afterwards.

Did it a little longer. We were We were We were there a short time, so I think we wanted I talked to Frankina afterwards and he was very pleased with everything that happened and your guys selling hot dogs. So, thanks. The musician was very good. Really? He did. So, he did a lot of genres, different ones he and he did a really nice job. We were singing Carolina. I I told Frank to go and tell the band that plays Caroline. They're making hot dog. I think some of that was a victim of how successful community day was overall. It was a lot of people.

Yeah. A lot. Not everybody. It was really good. Oh, you could tell from coming in one block driving down the road. How was it elsewhere besides where we were? It was great. It was great. It was absolutely outstanding by just outstanding. And and we can talk about like on at the parking lot. Uh that went very well. Steady group, steady people just asking, very interested in what we're doing here. So people were I mean lots of ideas for speakers and subject a lot of interest in the h upcoming house event and just saying can you know what are the dates of that people asking can they get it on is it male is that they can get it on so they're asking is can they get

updates more often on the speakers uh and then we had several people even a lot of the politicians came in and gave gave suggestions for speakers in the future okay which we can talk about you know as we get going into next year. Um people suggested today that they have a cur cur curator curator. Oh QR curator. I've been here since 10:00. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you rate totally totally 100%. No doubt. Yes. Day one. And that could be where we keep all the future presentations. Oh draw draws you right to that page. Yeah. Correct.

Yeah. Well, the QR code that is on the next presentation flyer does lead you to the civic rec site which has a list of all of the okay future presentations. Would um would that be um if we had that at the table would people have gotten the information? Okay. Did we have it at the table? I can't remember. Sorry. Uh but I do think I do think your suggestion I can do this for next time is just a list of the speak literally just a list. I mean that's all they want because they were just going through list. Well who else did you who else? And they're like oh yeah what did they say? It was really important. Then of course that spurred more ideas that they had.

Yeah. It was just a great discussion. Lots of interest. I mean it was just really good. So I thought it went very well. Uh but nicely organized easy you you picked and the volunteers the exact right stuff to have there. The oil derek with the pictures of the oil der was fant. Everything was it just went very well. Really good choice. Kids love to ring the bell. Yeah, they could because you had something for the little kids to come and do and ring the bells and they could do the big bell or the little bell. They had the one that was elementary or the trolley bells. So you want to do loud or you want to do small. They really had a good time. So thank you all for the volunteers for getting whatever role you played. Like it was I thought it went extremely.

We weren't sitting there. That's for sure. No, we were not twiddling our thumbs one one minute like it was next to basket too. I want to thank you for the position you put us. That's true. That's probably that could be key. Could be key. It was a great great spot. It was awesome. Shave. All right. Anything else on community days? Right. Again, thank you all. I think huge success. All right. Tomorrow, uh, September 18th, we have history of Macandas kickoff to 175. And I know I'm going to you Abby all the time, but Abby is our illustrious speaker for tomorrow. And there is a lot of interest that I told him about this tomorrow because I I'm assuming we're going to go through some of the activities for next year as well or not a little bit. Okay. That did tell was probably not going to be extensive.

Yeah. But we will mention some of the activities. So So we have 39 people registered for tomorrow. Awesome. Wow. Awesome. But nerve-wracking at the same time. Yeah. Um, so this is a adaptation of a presentation I did for a group back in 2022. So I'm updating it a little bit, adding some more uh content to it, some more pictures. Um, and then I will talk a little bit about mechanis 175 next year. Uh, tenative plans and programs for next year as well. Just sort of start to get the word out about that. Excellent stuff as well. All right. I'll be here. So, I'll get here a little bit early. I don't know how the good news is you know how everything works.

Yes. But I'll be here. Unfortunately, uh Claire won't be able to do CL Suzanne probably know Cla won't be able to do the raffle tomorrow. So, yeah. Yeah. Although, she does have something to donate. She has this right like a drum, you know, that you can like I'll bring it tomorrow. She wants to donate to add to the heritage center. Things be more fun. You got it. Yeah. It's like it's official. It's kind of like your Yeah. You put tickets in it. All right. Okay. So, that got anything else for tomorrow that you need? No.

Uh October 4th, the house program there. We were telling people about that at community days. They love the concept. Now, I did tell them this is like a proof of concept. See how it goes. I go, we're trying it. May not be 100%, you know, like exact, but they were like, cool, try it. Like, let's see how it goes.

Very unstructured. I told him it's it's version one. So this is a version one of it and so we'll see how it goes. I everybody loved the idea one. So we definitely gave you credit for it. We said that's a Caitlyn idea. Uh and we gave that credit to you as well. It was an example we we used about bringing ideas up and trying new things. And that was one of the ones we said. It's like we're going to try this. Like we'll see how it go. Like you know there like everything else nothing's going to be perfect but let's go. Let's get going with it. So everybody's like that's a great idea. There are 15 people registered so far. Pretty darn good for Saturday. That is That's very good. 15. 15. Yeah, that's not bad. Saturday.

All right, I'm going to move on then to October 16th is POS or past events. I want to say poss uh foundation. Is there anything additional? And I think Abby, are you the main contact for them if they need?

Yeah. So, I reached out to them a while back uh to get some pictures, a little blurb. Um it's going to be presented by Anthony Savannah. He's the executive director of the Pasant Foundation. Um and last year they celebrated their se 75th anniversary I believe. Um so he might be talking about that a little bit and just about uh the programs that the passive foundation supports um here in McCandless and also at their cranberry passive event. We had a lot of stuff from past event when uh um when we had a display which I don't think we have now. I don't know whether we can. No, it was those were items from their van collection. Yeah.

Should we try and get those again? We can certainly ask. Yeah. Hi Jerry. There Jar. All right. Anything else for the 16th? you know, like if they need we should be able to accommodate them from tech from a tech perspective. Yeah.

All right. I'm going to move on then. And also we I did I did confirm with Justin Zel for November 20th for the speaker. Uh so his is uh he owns Seal City Improv comedy club. So his subject is the serious business of running an improv comedy club in Pittsburgh. Uh, so he's going to talk, he is the owner, about uh how improv works, how to how it's like running a comedy club, the history of comedy in Pittsburgh. Believe it or not, he says uh Pittsburgh is getting to be a hot spot for comedy. You'll see a lot more bigger names coming. Uh and so he'll be talking about that. And then uh two aspects of his business which is getting people uh to do his uh just coming in for shows but then also corporate clients and political clients will come in uh to learn how to think on your feet quickly. Uh and he said it is a skill to be learned. Uh so a lot of corporate executives and politicians want to learn how to do that. So that's part of his business as well.

All right. I think can I mention that on September 23rd we're having Long View Acres is running the building for be here like at 6 and I'm not sure what they um did did you say I do need to collect money or I don't I can't remember when for their final payment she gave it to me last I'm glad yes okay I don't want to do that but um she I saw I stayed here and she ran the um video. She's going to run for those people. I was amazed. It's so well done. Good

and interesting, pretty, and well na uh narrated and very nice. Excellent. Very good. All right, those are the past events and the immediate things coming up. All right. Next thing just on the agenda item, anything anybody else wants to add to the agenda for today? If so, like when we go through it, let me know. Uh, as far as the approval of the previous meeting minutes, those were emailed out. I to me that accurately reflected everything we talked about. Uh, are we okay to approve the meeting minutes from last time? Mike from second.

All right. Thank you, folks. They're approved. All right. For the gayla, we do have a subcommittee meeting immediately following this one. That is coming up on November 1st at the Camelot in Wexford. Tickets are available available for purchase online on the town's website. I did actually and I know that because I actually purchased a table uh online. So, it is active. It does work. One thing we'll have to talk about in the subcommittee is there is a a processing fee that's in addition to this. So that's something just just to be they sent the tickets to my email. Is that what they usually do?

That is correct. Once the email looks so I print it off, you'll get this is what you get and it does have a barcode on it and print it. So I printed it. Yep. Make sure that that is correct. So you do have it in your email. You can print off the PDF as there is a um fee. A processing fee. Yes. So yeah, and I don't think we can I don't think there's going to be a darn thing you get out of that. Like it's like that's what you got to pay Mr. visa need to know visa. One of the other says you got to pay them.

Uh but that's something folks should know about because it'll it'll show you the amount you paid but the amount you get charged is slightly more because you will get charged the processing. But the good news is absolutely work perfectly. All right. And again we'll we'll meet again after uh subcommittee. Everybody's invited but you don't have to stay the subcommittee meeting. That's immediately after this one or you can only get tickets online. That's the way we're doing it right now. Is there is there we can talk about it now or at volunteer. Oh yeah, you're going. Yeah, you get to come to let me know. Pretty pretty soon. I don't know when

Yeah. would be volunteers get to come and bring a spouse or correct there's no fee. There's no fee for volunteer. Volunteer plus one. We'll also take payment for tickets in person as well. Okay. I'll do it at town hall. Okay. Rather than having the money handling for here. Yeah. If there's someone who just wants to cut a check or something for sure. Okay. All right. Thanks, Abby. That's a good Yeah.

All right. Again, we'll meet again on day, but that's going to start to heat up now the next two months. So, again, November 1st. Uh, and okay. reports and updates uh from committees, marketing and communications. Uh just from a social media standpoint, not sure Abby, given you've been doing 12 billion other things with community days, if there's anything to update there.

Uh I just pulled the information about the most popular posts in our Facebook reach um from the last month. So, in the last month, we've had 51, uh, 400 views, and we've reached 12,200 people. And our most popular post with likes and reactions was 72 likes and reactions on a photo of an aerial photo of Cumberland Road showing NI and what would be Mcnite Elementary. Um, is that Long View Acres, too?

No. Well, across the street. Yes, Long View Acres across the street. Um, and people love to comment like, "I can see my house." And look, it was the very It must have been like right when North Alagany built the high school there. Um, in the 50s, 1954. Uh, let's see. The second one. Hang on a second. The second one with 51 likes and reactions was uh a photo of Wiggins Tavern, which is now Billy's Roadhouse.

Wiggins, sorry. Um 50 likes and reactions for uh an ad for America, the grocery store that used to be

next to the Sesame. Um, likes and reactions 43 for the a picture of the Starlight Drive-In movie program from the 19 from 1958 based on the movies that were in there. And finally, number five was the ballot that North Alagany put out whenever they were selecting their mascot in 1954. Uh they asked the students to vote for a mascot and um Tigers was ultimately ultimately selected with them. Yeah. What were the other options?

The other options were Cavalier, Tiger, Vikings, Rams, Bulldogs, or the Rockets. So very interesting what could have been. It's always interesting what they agreed flow through.

All right. Anything else you want to mention? Marketing. All right. Uh budget report. So I know uh we're getting to at least version one of the budget for 2026. Uh and so Abby I don't Abby you want to talk about that. I know we'll have to make sure Don's looped into what the finals. Yeah. So, I met with um our finance director Britney and town manager John Schwin uh last week or the week before and we discussed budget for next year. I don't anticipate any significant changes. Um we talked about some things that I would like to see expanded as far as like using what we already have. So advertising in local magazines and doing a little bit more outreach stuff on our end to, you know, make that budget go a little bit further. So

there's there is a lot of money in the budget that we don't use, right? So or we could use more we could use it.

Yeah. Yeah. More effectively, let's say. And what I'm thinking we should do is like once we get through some of the planning on the gayla now that we're through community days and everything maybe get together as a group uh and just talk about next year some major activities like and just put together and we've got a good speaker calendar pretty pretty much uh but we want to see what other activities do we want to do like if do we want to make some updates to things and so uh I can work to get some date out to that for folks. I'm assuming though what works best for people is probably to do it right after uh sometime or some some board meeting or something like that. You can talk about that once we get through November meeting.

You got it. Yeah, the November meeting, correct? After we get through the gay monetary the $118. Gotcha. Nicely done. All right. Is every slot filled for every month filled for speakers? Or do uh actually we we'll get to that in a second. So we're we're pretty good. We got one, two, three, four, five, six out of 10. Six out of 10. So

pretty good. And we got some ideas for the other ones. So which we'll go through. So we've got a pretty good pretty good lineup already. So we working on it. Uh as far as programming then. So, a great leadin for programming as far as advertising for the speaker series in 2026. If you look down on the agenda, why don't I go down there as far as real quick confirmed speakers we've got for 2026. So, we're starting in March and I think that worked well last year because I think January and February are just tough. It's it's right. We've tried it in the past and I just think those are tough to be able to do January, February. So, March is Steve Cicero history hobo history of Route 19. April is Brady Kryer. Again, we can do French and Indian War, but there's other topics that we could choose from, which we'll get to in a bit. Um May 21st is the Roberto Clemente Museum. Uh they'll be here for we think is a good one for spring. Then we have August Scott Barrett, which we're assuming Ross Park Mall would be his subject. So that's what we're looking for him. Uh September again, Declan for North Park. Uh correct, North Park. And that's great. A lot of people were asking about like history of like a bunch of stuff about North Park. Just a bunch of stuff. Uh and also I did talk to the rangers there and we did say we want to talk about the distinction between North Park and the Latadami Nature Center. How do they work together? What's the relationship? And he said that's great because they're actually changing a few things. So he said that would be a great thing.

I think there were change in the name. Yes, I believe that. I believe I believe that is correct. Now make sure I don't know when. a combination of two kids. Yeah. Which really I wondered where what the heck that's like an acronym of the guys like six kids. It's it comes from a name of kids. Yeah. So I think I think that's correct. I think that's what it was. Yeah. That's what I was like never Yeah, I know. So but anyway there but great I think a lot of we had a lot of interest on that. uh then the NH geologists as well that we've got

I think that for 2026 for the remaining slots the remaining floor slots we should lean into more of the micro the local the way local yeah so if we have connections there um if anyone has any suggestions I I have found one grad he does documentaries on the autobiography for several weapon Oh, that's great. And I have his name and number. We have to give I'll give him perfect. That I was also thinking today about the guy who did the Nike missile site.

He was great. Yeah, I would do that one again. That he was great. He was a great real depth. Uh so that would be and and my bet is is a my bet is we can get one of the speakers from or a former gayla winner to thrive. So we have to talk that through as well because that would be ideal I think because some of those speeches that the Gayla winners give are absolutely fantastic. Uh so if they go give a presentation so we can talk about that more as well.

All right. And then we did talk about again already like get a a flyer with a full listing once we get the 2026 listing and uh local free magazines as you talked about as well. Uh scanning program for 2026. I'm not sure if you want to give any I don't know if there's any other updates on on the no updates since then. Amy just emailed me and said she was unable to come tonight. So I will um I will uh get with her on scheduling something there to do this scanning project for next year as well.

And our intent again is by the end of this year especially once we get past the GA finalize the speakers as best we can for next year and at least get that list out to everybody. And we can use several methods to do that. And so people can get it on their calendars. You see, even if it's not 100% full, you know, if it's 80% full, good enough to get it out there to people. We get a lot of asks.

So I think we can have I think we can assist with that. So I think that we can provide very easily. All right. Any I'm going to move on to the volunteer side. And there's anything else on programming. Um on the volunteer side, Suzanne, anything you want to mention from a a volunteers perspective? Well, we worked they every Wednesday it's kind of worked out well that they were all uh coming on that particular day. We brought all this stuff up for the speaker on the 23rd and are partially set up and then um it just there's seems to be a lot to do and they keep you know definitely keep busy. So, sounds good.

Nothing. Yeah. And the volunteers, they do all know about that the gayla they can attend with no fe that today. I was going to leave a note downstairs, but I think I think we need now is the time we need for sure. Yeah. So they can know it. Yeah. Perfect. All right. Thank you, Suzanne. As always, the volunteers do a great job. All right. I'm going to move over just operations operational uh updates from a Hines History Center perspective. Picking up the carousel panels. I'm not sure anything you want to mention on heard anything from her. Um, but just a reminder that they anticipate leaving soon. So, all right, sounds good. All right, Macandless 175 updates.

Yeah, we had our first MacAlas 175 committee meeting at the end of August, which was great. Um, there's 12 or 13 people on that committee and all representing uh many different stakeholders um in Macan list. So, we've got um someone from Lar Ro, Sisters of Divine Providence, um a fireman, Kevin. One name. I like it. Jesse, I like it. Yeah, exactly.

Um so, it was really great. Um, we just preliminarily talked about programs and events we wanted to uh focus in on for next year in addition to all of our regular community events which will all have a you know a filter of being 175. Um, so yeah, that's that was the first meeting that we had. The next one's next week. So more to come on that as we keep going. Sure. All right. Uh let's see. I don't know. Anything else you want to talk about? Uh just as far as uh the Sears houses, garden tour, anything along those lines?

Um when I met with the woman who has a Sears house here in McCandless, we uh talked about possibly doing some sort of program maybe similar to what Caitlyn is planning on doing where she feels like there's probably a lot of Sears houses in Macandas still. And like as you look around, you're like, "Huh, that could be one or that could be one." I mean, there's many different models of a Sears house. And there were also different companies that not only Sears, but um was it Wards or

Yeah, yeah, they all had those like mail order house kits. Um, so she and I I told her I would look into maybe maybe it's a lecture or maybe it's like do you think your house is a Sears house and there's different ways that you can determine whether it was a kit house or not. So that was just a you need to have a lecture and then maybe after that people can you know go into investigating whether they have a Exactly. And that could be part of the lecture like what to look for. Yeah. Yeah.

And and it should be noted that Gary Len was Jerry's next door neighbor. So

that's it. Jerry, my neighbor, I knew. All right. Anything else we want to mention from uh 175 standpoint? You want to talk about the garden tour? Um I'm not the garden tour is defunct. It's not happening. The ladies came and said that they took a a vote both uh garden groups and they said they didn't want to do that. Okay.

Okay. So it was um pretty much now one thing they did say that they might do when they have um they had uh last year for their uh 75th anniversary they planted 75 trees in North Park and uh we were talking to de uh no not Declan the other ranger ranger. Yeah. And um if if they wanted to do tree in North Park, I they they can't have a um a name on it, you know. Yeah. I wondered if we can get a tree here. And I don't think we're in North Park, are we?

No. Okay. Then you could have a name on it. But uh they said that they would buy it and pay for it and and uh that would be something that would be our two 275th anniversary and buy them, you know, and I don't whether we want to do that, but that was the only thing they were willing, you know, to do. I mean, that all gets it's a lot of work doing that. Very nice. I'm disappointed.

Yeah. But very nice that you got the Now we know. Now we know. Okay. Can I get it? All right. Anything else to talk about there? Last thing I just wanted to mention, I know it's not on the agenda here, but last time we talked about Dan Points stepping down uh from the board and I know that had to get accepted as resignation at a council meeting. Just can you give an update? Is that officially accepted then? Okay, it's now officially accepted and now we have to open up the application process has to be open for 30 days and advertised. Um, at which point we can accept applications and interview those people and then after 30 days we'll make decision.

Yeah. And scheduling of the interviews would you be doing that Abby or who does it? Who schedules? So according to the rules it has to be I think Don the liaison for the committee the chair of the committee and then the staff leaison. So it'll be the three of us not conducting the interviews. All right, sounds good. So progress exactly as we thought. So going slowly, but yes. Very good. All right, that is the end of the agenda items for today. Anything else anybody wants to talk about in a jam-packed week? Perfect timing. It's good. All right. Hey, thanks folks. I know this was a really good week. So again, thanks folks. And we got we got uh fun activity tomorrow. So again, 40 39 people signed up for this tomorrow. All right. What's our uh

Is there a motion to adjurnn? Oh, I'm sorry. Motion to We have a motion to adjurnn. Second. Done. All right. First, uh Rich Rich was first. Oh, no. We had to do Oh, say I did. Can I do I a question about the presentation tomorrow? Sure. I have this table over here. Yep. That's what those ladies want. But is that would that work for having the presentation? I don't want to